Why Lance McCullers got promoted last year, in one quote

Hey friend,

Are you sad that the Astros had an off-day so soon into spring training? Are you ready for games to be played and the 2016 roster to come into focus?

Let me make it a bit easier for you to get through the day. Read this excellent article by Ted Berg over at USA Today Sports.

There's some really great stuff in there about how the Astros view pitchers and spin rates and all the junk we've discussed on this site ever since Brent Strom became a thing. It's all in there.

"What you may not have anticipated is how the pitchers have taken to it. Specifically, how Lance McCullers uses it to think about pitching. Even more specifically, here's one quote from LMJ that shows why the Astros felt  they could promote him out of the blue last season:"I'm not overthinking anything," he said. "This is concrete stuff. It's not ten different opinions given to me, where I have to kind of go through and decide which I want to run with. This is 100% accurate stuff that has been proven to work, and that's why I'm so excited about it.

"Even though you're getting a ton of info thrown at you, you know it's solid. The only reason you're getting the info is to make you better as a pitcher. In today's age, especially with some of the pitchers we have out there and some of the guys we have coming up, you have to stay cutting edge, and you have to stay as advanced as possible to keep yourself in the game."

McCullers sounds like Greg Maddux there, doesn't he? Which is weird, from a guy who came off a bit "bro-ey" during his minor league run. Heck, he even had the Batman shoes and the probably-not-a-throat-slash thing in the playoffs last year. You wouldn't expect this from him, yet here it is.

The idea of a guy who throws 95 and also has the mindset of The Professor is just so intriguing. Let's start calling him Doctor Lance right now.

Bye for now,

David